Since 2008, an independent look at challenges and opportunities in sports and financial investing, with occasional diversions as my mood takes me. Nothing is for sale, and this not a Profit and Loss report either. They're boring.

Saturday, 29 September 2012

Earlier today, I posted up Tony's Lays for the weekend, and Tony adds some more thoughts on how to play these:

As well as laying these teams, I also started to get involved in my two matches in running this week. Both Borussia Dortmund (Tuesday) and Schalke '04 (Friday) took early 2-0 leads and went to 1.1 and 1.07, so I took a position on both these matches and backed when the scores went 1-2 and 2-2. I know you have mentioned a similar approach in American Football before, albeit in a game that has many more swings in prices, but I thought I would have a go on my away lays too. Maybe I got lucky but looking back over the results there seems to be an opportunity in quite a few of the games so far - both Manchester teams came from behind against Southampton, two late goals for Barcelona to win 2-1. Worth a further look?

The strategy of laying the leader at short prices is an attractive one. It's certainly my experience in the sports of basketball and American Football, that prices drop into the 1.0x range too early. Fear and greed drive the markets, and as I have written before, the market gets caught up in the frenzy of a team taking a lead, and wants to be on a winner. Greed rules for a while, and the price is driven too low. The bounce happens when the fear element comes back into play, and the market collectively reassesses its position, and the reality hits that maybe the win isn't quite so assured as it seemed earlier. As is well documented, I prefer the US sports for this strategy, because they are simply better suited to trading than football (soccer), and basketball is preferable to American Football because with so many points in total, and any one possession rarely adding more than three to any one team's score, it's a trading dream.

Trading football (soccer) is a different ball game (pun intended) altogether. Possessions rarely result in a score, and prices move in a pre-determined direction. My feeling is that if you feel the market has priced a game wrongly pre-game, e.g. Schalke are too short, then the market is likely to continue offering value, even after a goal or two. You certainly can't go far wrong laying at 1.07 after 20 minutes in the Bundesliga. All you need for a decent return is for the next goal to be scored by Fortuna Dusseldorf, and this may well be more value than the pre-game 1.97, with greed driving that price down too far.

Perhaps I shouldn't have trumpeted these lays. Liverpool, Bayern Munich and Manchester City all won this afternoon!

About Me

I have had a life-long interest in sports and after studying Pure Mathematics with Statistics at secondary school, have been fascinated by odds and probability.
The first system I came up with was a simple one - back the favourite and double up after a loss until a winner. Simple enough in theory, and I told my Dad about it. Not being a betting man himself, he ran it by some of his colleagues, and came home to tell me that it wouldn’t work because a long losing run would mean that the bank would be empty. Then there was always the possibility that the winner would be returned at odds-on, meaning that the total returns would not match the outlay. Not what a ten year old wants to hear! Only slightly daunted, I then went on a search for the Holy Grail, the secret to riches that I knew was out there somewhere. Finally in 2004 I stumbled across an article about Betting Exchanges and four years on I am able to make a steady profit. I am at that age where I can start thinking about retirement and anything I make from trading sports will bring that day forward.